FOR THE HANDICAP GOLFER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 20 September 1932, Page 7

FOR THE HANDICAP GOLFER

DANGERS OF OVER SWINGING VIRTUE OF THE STRAIGHT LEFT ARM (By C. A. Whitcombe, Captain of the British Ryder Cup Team) (Specially Written for “The Mail”) While playing recently on a strange course my caddie, who was himself a good player and possessed a sound knowledge of the game pointed out a young girl on a near-bv fairway. “If she could shorten her swing she would be a fine player,” he said, “I’ve tried to get her to stop the club when it reaches a horizontal position, but it’s hopeless.” I watched the girl play a couple of strokes and it was good to see how she stood to the ball. She looked a golfer from her business-like address. Her stance proclaimed her natural aptitude for the fame. But her swing was not only much too long but she stopped the club at the top most perceptibly as if she had to make a deliberate effort to bring it back. I was too far off to see, but I think it was pi’obable that most of her trouble was due to a, faulty grip. It appeared that as soon as the club reached the horizontal she lost control and that its own weight caused it to dip. Often this is owing to a little slackness in the right hand. With the usually adopted overlapping method of holding thv club the rigl)t thumb should be placed down the side of the shaft which rests in the kuckles of the first finger. This thumb and finger must be kept close together and the V which they form firmly closed. v On no account ought they to be allowed to come apart. In the case of the girl I have mentioned I think it is likely that the V was not completely shut, with the result that as soon as the weight of the club began to tell at the top of the swing it fell into it. I need hardly say that this is a serious fault and ,may ; lead to all sorts of mistakes in stroke production. . The top is undoubtedly the critical point of the swing. In fact it is not too much to say that in, nine out of ten, strokes that, go wrong the fault occurs here.. It is now accepted that the safest position is the horizontal one. The longest hitters may possibly go a fraction beyond it, but for ordinary nurposes this is not necessary. Indeed, it may be dangerous to do so because if the head begins to dip in the style of the old time golfers who had to deal with the unresponsive guttie ball there is a fear of losing control At any rate the risk is nob worth running. There must be a pause, even a halt, in the swing in making the change from up to down, but it should be imperceptible I know of no first class golfer or even of one who has attained any real success who stops the club, so that the stop can be noticed. It is true that Macdonald Smith halts his putter at the back in most marked fashion, but he is a law unto himself and it has always been a mystery how he retains the rhythm of the swing. If the club is stopped it has to be set going again, and it is not only like beginning the stroke once more, but you must be a Macdonald Smith if the smoothness of the swing is not affected and even destroyed. As a matter of fact loss of rhythm is the danger in over swinging because the player who passes the horizontal is likely to feel that some effort is required to get the club back and in making it he will call on the right hand. Immediately this happens he goes wrong. As soon as the right hand comes into the stroke at the top the player, in all orobability, starts to hit and this is so commonly done that I think it has a good deal to do with all the slicing to which golfers are heir. This hitting at the top in. fact is a most unfortunate phase of British golf.. It is as if the player, fatally lacking in patience, is desperately eager to get at the ball and he races the club down with a. jerk from the top and the timing is spoilt. Acceleration of the down swing must be gradual and I do not think the right hand should come into the shot until the club head is at least half way to the ball. I write, of course, in respect to wooden club strokes, but it is almost as bad to hurry down with an iron though the dangers are perhaps not as great owing to the fact that the iron shaft is shorter. Just as the club is started by a sort of push back with the left hand the return from the top should be by means of a pull back with the same hand. Keep the right out of it in both cases. I have noticed that those who cany the club too far at the top are inclined to lift instead of swing the cliib back, and one result of this is that the left elbow begins to bend almost as soon as the movement shirts. Again their hands go up high. This in itself is not a fault. In fact it is a characteristic of both Harry Vardon and Bobby Jones. But neither of these players bends his left arm. uiitil lie is apnrdaching the top. The straight left, arm is a good cure for over swinging, because it makes for a sweeping movement rather than a lift, and it also encourages the use of the left hand at the start. It undoubtedly, too, means that the club head will move on a wider arc than if it is hoisted up with the arms bent.